these things out there are things people can understand. that's what you get hit with in 2018. >> i think we're watching them recreate the aca process and the stakes are only higher than obamacare. jason john, thanks for joining me. thanks for joining me. the "rachel maddow" show starts right now. >> chuck schumer will be joining us live for an interview tonight. very much looking for that. in 2014, a longstanding, well respected democratic senator from iowa, tom harkin, retired. eventually his senate seat went to republican joanie ernst. because everybody knew 2014 would be a good year for republicans and republicans knew the tom harkin senate seat was a pretty good chance at a republican pickup in 2014, it ended up being a big and aggressive primary fought on the republican side to see who would

getting to be the republican competing for that seat that year. joanie ernst ended up winning that primary and winning the seat. one of the people she ran against in the primary in 2014 was a locally well-known conservative radio host. in march of 2014, during that primary, at that talk show host did an interview with radio iowa. the content of that interview stuck out a little bit at the time, and i'll explain why, but it sticks out a lot now in retrospect three years later given what ultimately became of that candidate. now, i say it stuck out a little bit at the time because at the time of this radio interview in 2014, russia had just invaded ukraine. they'd taken crimea from ukraine. and at that time, 2014 in mainstream american politics, nobody in either major party was particularly soft on russia, but particularly in a republican

primary in a state like iowa, you'd actually expect all the candidates to be pretty aggressively hawkish on russia, particularly after russia had just invaded one of their neighbors. but it was interesting. in that senate primary, that republican senate primary in 2014, this one primary candidate, the local talk radio host, he really went the other way. he called himself a former pentagon expert on russia and he told radio iowa that, quote, pushing the russians out of crimea is not a realistic option. he said, quote, i think a lot of people, i'm not sure they understand the history of russia. you go back, you know, 1,500 years to the foundation of the russian empire. it actually started in ukraine and was evolved out of that. this whole issue is about as russian as it gets, meaning russia should be allowed to take parts of ukraine. that's russia's business, not anybody else's. and this candidate apparently felt pretty passionately about

it. he went on in some detail, saying, quote, crimea is mostly russia speakers -- i think he means russian speakers. crimea is mostly russian speake speakers. ukraine has been part of the russian sphere of influence for century, i really think this is just the flexing of muscles and and the expansion of the russian empire. this is really historically the kind of thing russia ought to be able to do. what did he call it? the expansion of the russian empire back to more traditional historic borders. why not reestablish the russian empire. right?

besides, if we did want to raise a stink about it, there's no reason to think we'd have any power to do so anyway. he said, quote, economic and diplomatic sanctions won't work against russia. so let russia have it. i mean, so that stuck out a little bit, right, in 2014. that's an unusually pro-russia, detailed, pro-russia stance to be taking in american politics in a republican primary in 2014, this is not when attitude toward russia had a big spotlight on them in mainstream american politics. so that interview stood out a little built bit but ultimately doubt that interview had much to do with it when that candidate lost that senate primary. in the end joanie ernst won the primary, ended up winning that seat in the senate and that radio talk show host, who had given that really pro-russia interview about just letting

them keep ukraine, it's pretty much theirs anyway, he just went pack to being back to being a radio talk show host in 2014. he billed himself as being an expert on soviet military operations. his name was sam clovis. he lost that senate primary in 2014. in 2015 he started to run rick perry's iowa campaign. that ended up being a short job. in 2016 he ended up joining the donald trump for president campaign. sam clovis became the national co-chair of the trump for president campaign, became the top policy official and weird russia stuff kept following him around. when the wall street journal reported earlier this year about a republican political operative named peter smith who mounted a campaign to get hackers' imma

e-mails. he was supportive to find russian hackers to obtain documents from the democrats. peter smith also bragged he was in contact with sam clovis from the trump campaign on that operation. now, as far as i know, sam clovis has never had to answer any questions as to his alleged role in peter smith's project to try to work with the russians to help trump and hurt clinton during the campaign, but, like i say, weird russia stuff follows sam clovis around. sam clovis is also credited, if that's the right word, with bringing on to the trump campaign, carter page, who traveled to moscow during the campaign, who said he informed attorney general jeff sessions he was going to moscow during the campaign. carter page also turns up in the

indictment of a russian spy ring that was discovered operating out of new york city russian bank branch. sam clovis is credited with bringing carter page on to the trump campaign and also credited with bringing on to the campaign george papadopoulos, who has now become quite famous for lying with the fbi about his contacts with russia during the trump campaign. in the plea agreement revealed by a judge on money, it was apparently sam clovis who was george papadopoulos's supervisor who told him he was doing great work when he initiated and maintained contact with russian sources. when george papadopoulos suggested that there be an off-the-record meeting between trump campaign personnel and russian officials up to and

including people from putin's office, sam clovis is reportedly the campaign supervisor who encouraged george papadopoulos to take that trip. well, now we've learned that m clovis has not only spoken to investigators on the russia investigation, we've learned that he's also reportedly testified to the grand jury in the mueller investigation. now, this happened while sam clovis was working in the trump administration. and apparently tonight he remains the white house liaison to the u.s. department of agriculture, which is apparently a job. despite his ongoing white house role, abc news reports tonight that the white house had no idea that this senior figure from the trump campaign, national co-chair of the trump campaign, the top policy official on the trump campaign, this guy who is currently an administration official working for the trump administration, apparently the white house had no idea that he

testified to the grand jury until they read about it in the press this week, which presumably means they have not been advised as to whether or not sam clovis sought immunity in exchange for his grand jury testimony. and just based on that plea agreement that's just been unsealed regarding george papadopoulos, i mean, clovis as papadopoulos's campaign supervisor, he has obvious exposure to matters that the special counsel is investigating. in the plea agreement, papadopoulos said he was advised by his russian contacts that they had dirt on hillary clinton and that they had thousands of e-mails. it doesn't say anywhere in the plea agreement whether or not papadopoulos tried to obtain that dirt from the russians or those thousands of e-mails. it also doesn't say in the plea agreement if he told his superiors on the trump campaign that the russians told him they had dirt on clinton and thousands of e-mails. it doesn't say whether he ever tried to arrange any exchange or

delivery of information from his russian sources up the chain of command on the trump campaign. but we do know that sam clovis was his campaign supervisor and we dou know from the plea agreement and papadopoulos's guilty plea that he did have those conversations with the russians and he was in frequent contact with the trump campaign, including his supervisor, sam clovis, about the fact that he was talking to the russians. so, i mean, you want to ask, right, you want to ask what, you know, what papadopoulos's supervisor heard from george. hey, what did george tell you about his russia contacts? his supervisor was sam clovis and sam clovis was due to be in a senate nomination hearing, nominated to be the top scientist at the agriculture department, despite the fact he is not a scientist. at that hearing, democrating

already started to signal they had things to ask him about besides his lack of scientific credentials and his potential role at the department of agriculture. of course you would ask him that. once you got sam clovis under oath in front of the united states senate, you would ask him, hey, about this kid who was reporting on the trump campaign and just pled guilty under the mueller investigation, can we talk to you about what he told you? knowing that was going to be the character clovis's hearing neck week and absorbing this new news that apparent lich cloly clovis talking to the grand jury and without notifying the white

house he was doing so, today his nomination for that agriculture job was yanked. i'm going to post a link tonight where you can see for yourself sam clovis representing himself as a pentagon expert on russia and on the soviet military. that was how he portrayed himself in iowa in 2014 when he was running for senate. but the collapse of his nomination and these revelations about clovis' involvement with the special counsel's office and the grand jury, that's just one of like a million fascinating things that happened today. this is one of those days when any one of these things would have been a blaockbuster story. today we have the court hearing for campaign manager paul manafort and gaetz. at least until next week, we

know that manafort and gates will be continued to be confined to their homes. apparently not just manafort but both of them are subject to electronic monitoring devices while they're being held in their homes. rk gates does now have a lawyer. manafort's associate rick gates was represented by a public defender. he has now picked up expensive lawyers of his own, like paul manafort has. i have to tell you, paul manafort's expensive lawyers appear to be having some trouble already in this case. the judge today harshly criticized paul manafort's lawyer for having spoken to reporters on the courthouse steps after monday's indictment. she asked, in fact, for argues from the prosecution and from the defense as to whether she should institute a gag order now that prevents either side from making any further states outside the courtroom. because she so annoyed of what

he said to reporters on monday. gates' lawyers and manafort's lawyers both submitted requests to the court today that the terms of confinement for manafort and gates be loosened. there again, problems for manafort's lawyer. the judge criticized manafort's lawyer for submitting lihis argument that his house arrest should be loosened and criticized him for not submitting that argument as a formal motion to the court. so manafort's lawyer today had to issue an apology in court for the inappropriate form of his application on his client's behalf. the judge appeared to not be impressed by the apology, tuold him to turn around and refile in proper form tonight. okay. we got to see today filings that

included repeated misspellings of the sicyprus. on the right side of your screen is cypress the way manafort's lawyers spelled it. it is not a country, it is a lovely tree. cypress is where your client held his millions of dollars without telling the irs. tree, trouble, tree, trouble. the judge today indicated that the trial for manafort and gates may start in april. she also indicated she's not inclined to release either manafort or gates from home confinement or lower the terms of their bail or set them free from their electronic monitoring devices. the judge said in court today tlat char

that their charges are significant, their ties abroad are significant and she said, quote, i have concerns about flight. shortly after that court hearing broke up today, cnn broke this news about cnn white house adviser and presidential son-in-law jared kushner, reporting late this afternoon that kushner has turned over documents to special counsel robert mueller's office. we don't know if jared kushner has testified to mueller's inquiry but according to c nn, mueller's investigators have expressed interest in kushner as part of its probe into meddling including potential obstruction of justice in the firing fbi director james comey and also asked about how a statement was issued in the name of donald trump. investigators have also asked

about, quote, circumstances surrounding the departure of other white house aides. why those would be related to obstruction of justice or any other potential criminal matter, i don't know. but they're asking about jared and other people leaving the white house? no idea what any of that is about. but if cnn's right and those inquiries are being made by the special counsel's office, that would indicate at the very least that mueller's investigators aren't just looking at things that happened during the campaign. they really are pursuing matters that occurred after the inauguration once trump was sworn in, actions by white house officials. and they're not just looking at people who used to be white house officials and they're now gone, they're looking at people who are currently in senior positions in the trump administration. and that brings us to what i think is probably the biggest uh-oh in the news today for the trump administration, which is attorney general jeff sessions. part of the reason that presidential son-in-law jared kushner has been in interest in

terms of the potential come tacts between the trump campaign and russia is because kushner appeared to have tried to conceal those ties, conceal a number of contacts he had with russian officials, his still-explained-meeting with an ambassador close to putin. he left all those con took ttac russian officials off his security clearance. attorney general jeff sessions, he was also secretive and concealing about his own meetings with russians and about his knowledge of other trump campaign officials meeting are russians. but the problem for jeff sessions is that unlike jared kushner, he didn't just do it on a security clearance application. jeff sessions did it repeatedly under oath. >> if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the

russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians and i'm unable to comment on it. >> that was under oath. then senator jeff sessions during his confirmation hearings to become attorney general telling the senate he didn't have communications with russians during the campaign. it was later reported that senator sessions did have communications with russians during the campaign. when that emerged in march, senator sessions at first continued to deny it, then he admitted it while recusing himself while overseeing any justice department matters involving the campaign but still insisted these meetings that he did take with russians that he'd forgotten about, he still insisted they weren't about the campaign.

>> let me be clear -- i never had meetings with russian operatives or russian intermediaries about the trump campaign. >> senator sessions later appeared before the senate intelligence committee and whittled that denial down a little further, admitting, okay, he might have had conversations with russians in which they did discuss the campaign but when he was meeting with russians and talking about the campaign with them, he wasn't talking about russians interfering in the campaign. >> i have never met with or had any conversation with any russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the united states. further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the trump campaign. >> that, too, was under oath. now, though, in the plea agreement just unsealed involving trump campaign adviser

george papadopoulos, the government asserts and papadopoulos affirms that it's true that not only did he as part of the trump campaign have contacts with the russian government while he was working with the campaign, those conversations really were about the russians interfering in the campaign. by collecting dirt on hillary clinton and obtaining thousands of e-mail. papadopoulos asserts in a meeting during the campaign, which is pictured on the president's instagram account, papadopoulos told that national security at which trump was present, it was a group being chaired by jeff sessions, papadopoulos says he told that meeting that day that he was in contact with the russian government and was in a position to link the trump campaign up with the putin government, including for high-level meetings. the attorney general was there for that meeting, clearly. you see him on the left side of your screen. he said papadopoulos did raise that issue that that meeting with jeff sessions there but

nevertheless repeatedly under oath, including just a couple of weeks ago, sessions insisted that nothing like that ever happened. he never heard of it happening and it certainly didn't involve him. >> was that what you're saying that you don't believe that surrogates from the trump campaign had communications with the russians, is that what you're saying? >> i did not and i'm not aware of anyone else that did. and i don't believe it happened but -- >> and you don't believe it now. >> i don't believe it happened. >> okay, so -- >> whatever you think of theest te -- the power of the united states senate, the senate does confirm people for major jobs in any administration and that means they get people under oath answering questions. and that means they get those people back to answer further question when they need to. senator franken sent jeff

sessions an eight-page letter demanding he explain in which you, a nation's top law enforcement officer failed to tell the truth under oath about the trump team's contact with agents from russia. and senator leahy said "attorney general sessions needs to come back before the senate judiciary committee. the description of the march 2016 trump campaign meeting contained in unsealed documents is impossible to reconcile with the attorney general's appearance before the judiciary committee just two weeks ago. he now needs to come back before the committee in person and explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions. i have to be honest with you. when i think about public service jobs being a united states senator mostly does not sound like a fun job, but right now democratic senators are absolutely pinning the attorney general to the wall on this. and he appears unable to get

away from them. and as such, that is starting to feel like a pretty powerful job, to be a u.s. senator in this context. top democrat in the u.s. senate, chuck schumer joins us live coming up. what? yeah, with liberty mutual all i needed to do to get an estimate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... hold it boys... there's supposed to be three of you... where's your brother? where's your brother? hey, where's charlie? charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance.

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joining us now for the interview tonight is the top democrat in the united states senate, senator chuck assuschumf new york. thank you for being here. >> good evening. good to be here. >> a whole bunch of things i want to ask you about. >> oh yes. >> you're in my clutches. i want to ask you about the tax reform, about the terrorist attack that the president sin singled you out in. there are senators and republican senators expressing concerns about the attorney

general. he came under fire about the subject of russia in his confirmation hearing. senators leahy and franken from minnesota say they want jeff sessions to clarify what they say are false statements from him in the campaign. >> from what i've seen, i saw it in the car when i got off the plane. it seems serious. senator sessions -- they had asked him questions in the past. they weren't sure if they got straight answers. and now some of the facts we have seen make it more serious. he needs to come back. >> he initially said he personally had no contacts with russians during the campaign. he later admitted they were true but they weren't discussions about the campaign. then he said they may have been about the campaign but not interference. he said he knew of nobody on the

campaign having contact with russians, which is not only false, but it was false under oath. >> it's serious stuff. >> what's the remedy with an official like the attorney general -- >> well, perjury is a very careful standard, but it's something that would be looked at. i think -- i have not seen, i've just heard second hand what he has said. it's been reported. i'd want to see all the facts before coming to a judgment, but it's serious enough just seeing a cursory description, i agree with franken and leahy that he's got to come back. >> what's your reaction to the indictments this week and unveiling of the guilty plea of those trump campaign officials? >> look, obviously when donald trump says collusion with russia is fake news, it's clearly not. here you have one of the best prosecutors in the land who has shown at least a campaign official involved with russia. heavy indictments of top

campaign officials with all kinds of financial problems. and so this is serious and, look, this has got to go forward unimped unimpeded. no one should put any barriers in mueller's way, whether it be shutting the investigation down, that would be horrible, curtailing his funding, diverting him to something that is not what he wants to do. he ought to have complete freedom and if god forbid he's interfered with, i think the congress has to come together. it will be the ultimate test of our republican colleagues because rule of law is paramount in america. and interference with mueller's investigation would violate that principle because no person, even the president of the united states, is not above the law. >> we're seeing a real concerted full court press on the part of the conservative media, and not just on -- with our friends at the fox news channel but also in the wall street journal

editorial page, new york post and a lot of murdoch properties -- >> but the hard right, as usual, they are well organized and they all sing from the same hymnal. i don't know how that happens but they do. they are one, trying to divert attention away from the investigation. that's futile. there are real facts behind the investigation by a professional prosecutor. they aren't going to be able to do that. the second may be to try to steer things off course. that would be -- if there were actions by the president, anyone in the administration, even the congress to steer things off course, that would be really serious. >> do you believe if the president took action to fire robert mueller or to otherwise try to impede the investigation or block -- or knock it off course, do you have confidence that your republican colleagues in the senate would stand -- >> they're very afraid of the hard right but this is so serious and i've talked to some

of my colleagues privately, that i'm hopeful that they would join us and we could by law set up an independent counsel law and restore mueller to the job. >> there are reports tonight from the associated press that the mueller investigation -- and again the mueller investigation is not very leaky and reports don't always -- >> he's such a pro. no one even knew about a lot of this stuff until it happened. he's a pro all the way through. they can't say a bad thing about him. >> well, they do. >> they can't say a legitimate bad thing about him. >> the associated press tonight reports an emerging target of the investigation or focus of the investigation may be not just people associated with the trump campaign but people who they may have on the hook for violations of the foreign agent registration act, including prominent democratic firm the podesta group and the mercury

group, led by a former republican congressman named vin weber. if the mueller effort is going to start really going after people for foreign agent registration and it is going to start ensnaring lobbying groups and other people well outside the trump campaign, is that an appropriate use of -- >> well, i'm not going to speculate until i would see more facts. >> okay. >> you don't know what the relationships are, the interlocking relationships. maybe it is related, maybe it isn't related. i think it's safe not to comment on this until you saw some real facts. >> let me ask you about the popular perception that wleefr peop -- whatever people think of the investigation -- >> i saw a poll today that the public thinks he's doing the right thing. it's 2-1 it said in the newspaper. >> there is an increasingly widespread perception and reporting that the congressional

investigations are off course, that both in the house and in the senate things have become partis partisan, divided, no hope for any investigation, let alone a bipartisan investigation. i talk to mark warner and to adam shift. th -- adam schiff. they feel it goes off course and then goes back on course. the stuff they've done this week looking at social security media and russian social security immedia -- social media was a positive stuff on the bad things that went on. look, both republican leaders have gone off course at times but then -- and particularly in the senate, warner has brought them back. so i think we have to have a little patience. is it going as smoothly or as quickly as i would like? no. but would i write it off and

say, oh, it's going to be hopeless? no. >> i know you want to talk about taxes. >> yes, i do! >> i can see it in your eyes. i also want to ask you about this fight that the president picked with you on a very auspicious occasion this week. we'll be right back with chuck schumer. stay with us. and i take trulicity once a week to activate my body to release it, like it's supposed to. trulicity is not insulin. it comes in a once-weekly, truly easy-to-use pen. the pen where you don't have to see or handle a needle. and it works 24/7. trulicity is a once-weekly injectable medicine to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. it should not be the first medicine to treat diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take trulicity if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer,

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joining us once again for the interview is the top democrat in the united states senate, senator chuck schumer of new york. thank you for sticking with us. the trump administration has unified control of capitol hill and the white house. they have passed no significant legislation since president trump was sworn in, despite their almost heroic efforts to try to repeal the affordable care act. >> the bill is so warped toward the wealthy and big corporations and they want to do so much, it's greed, that they have real

trouble and they're stuck. on the one hand to pay for the tax breaks for the wealthiest and the biggest corporations who doesn't pay a 35% actual tax. the top thousand i believe it is pay 16%. >> hmm. >> but that they are stuck. they have to eliminate deductions that the middle class needs. that's very unpopular and it's unpopular particularly in their district, sort of middle class, upper middle class suburb an districts. if they eliminate them, the deficit goes uponed there a h-- there are a handful who still believe that is not right. now there are huge tax cuts that raise the deficit much greater, that's perfectly okay. >> do you think that the -- >> i think that they have a

rough road to hoe and they're going to have a problem for two reasons. we have two big problems, one is income mal distribution, the top is earning so much. this will make it worse. second, the only way we can get middle class people and people trying to get into the middle class, it's government, it's education, it's road building, it's research. if you create cuts, it will be decimated and they might have to cut medicare and medicaid. >> when you say they're not sure they're not going to be able to pass it, they could pass it with their own votes. >> yes. we could do some bipartisan things but they've rejbd thectet completely. >> there's been no democratic involvement at all? >> none. they go to a closed room and come up with a bill and say you

support it. that's bipartisanship. i'll say one other thing. they are so embarrassed about this bill. the hard right, which is running the show for the first time, is so far away from what americans want. that's why health care failed. and hopefully that's why this will fail. so what they're trying to do is rush it through. not one hearing on this major, major bill affecting our whole economic system, our tax code. no discussion, no analysis by outside experts. they introduced it today, they want to start marking it up, doing amendments monday. they're afraid. they're embarrassed. i call this bill a dead fish. the more it's in the sun, the more it stinks. they don't want people to know about it. >> are there red state democrats or conservative democrats who are potentially going to vote for this thing? >> we had 45 democrats sign a letter that said we had three principles, very simple, easy principles. no tax breaks to the 1%, don't blow a huge hole in the deficit

and don't do reconciliation, do it bipartisan. 45 signed. there were three who didn't. but if you listen to those three and what they say, they agree with our principles. they just didn't want to sign the letter. >> these heitkamp and donnelly and man chocian. >> it was our unity that helped sink it. >> a new york question here. i think new york is a particularly important state when thinking about the politics -- >> absolutely. >> -- of this tax plan. there are nine republican senators from new york. new york is the kind of states, blue state, that will be particularly hurt by these taxes. >> and those tend to be republican disabilities. peter king to his ever lasting

credit has taken this on. his district will get killed. the fella out on the first district, lee zeldin, now he's a trump guy, but he's opposed this because he know what is it will do in his district. i went around the state and actually i don't like to do this but i named names. i said congressman so and so and so and so, they would be betraying new york by voting for this, going for the hard right, wealthy people. and seven of the nine voted against the budget. and so i have called the governors, democratic governors the eight or nine other states, california, colorado, virginia, pennsylvania, where you have a lot of these districts and asked them to do the same. and they're in the process of doing it. so the republicans, particularly those from the suburban districts, particularly those who tend to be a little more mainstream, not hard, hard right, are squirming. and they're going to be damned

either way. if they vote against it, they will have their right-wing leadership mad at them, but if they vote for it, they face real electoral problems. they're really hurting their constituents in a very big and real way. so i think we have a good shot. i think we have a good chance of defeating it and i hope for the sake of the country, forget the politics, that we defeat it. it would blow a hole in the deficit for a decade. we couldn't do things we need to do to rebuild this country and it would make income distribution even worse, bad enough as it is now. taking money away from middle class people and giving it to the wealthiest and these big corporations and one more thing, this myth that if you give these corporations tax cuts they'll create jobs is utter bull. they're stocked with money now. they're not putting it into jobs, stock buyback, corporate salaries for the high end, dividends. they don't use it for jobs. it's a myth.

and what we're up against, this is the one thing that i am fighting hard in this job and i'm enjoying it actually, i didn't know i would have enjoyed it as much as i did, but they have a machine and they have these think tanks and these professors and they perpetrate utter bull. even the mainstream newspapers, well, maybe it will create jobs, maybe it won't. it won't. >> senator schumer, i have one more thing to ask you about. stay right there. now i'm fired up about taxes. we'll be right back with senator chuck schumer of new york. what started as a passion...

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get $200 off at dell.com/gaming. accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it.

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part and quite quickly by criticizing you and by essentially saying it's your fault because of immigration policies you supported in the past. i don't want to do balls and strikes on immigration policy on this because i don't think it's appropriate but what did you expect from the president? did that behavior surprise you? >> no. because what i said -- i said he ought to stop tweeting and start leading. contrast him with george bush. i opposed on most policies. he called senator clinton and i to the white house. how can we work together? we put a picture online of us at ground zero. look at what trump does. makes it political. we don't know the names of the dead and he is already trying to gain political points. it is so demeaning to this country and, you know, it doesn't bother me. i stick by my values. there are times online he's flattered me. there are times online he's called me names. doesn't bother me. you stick to your values and

that is fine but so bad for the country. so bad for the country that in times of tragedy he seeks to -- political advantage and he had to back off. the spokesperson, i tweeted back at him i think in a good way. not nasty. he didn't tweet back because i think he knew. and then his spokesperson said, oh no. he wasn't saying senator schumer's responsible. he had to back off and yet this morning interestingly enough not only did "the new york times" liberal and "the washington post" moderate but "wall street journal" editorial page criticized him for what he said about me. >> do you feel like the norms that the president has broken and feel like they're reparable? >> well, americans -- with him? i thought after three months maybe he'd learn. i'm having my doubts about that. really am. i think he's incorrigible. just over and over and over again. what i worry about, aside from

the policies and this hard right movement which so hurts the middle class, we have norms in this country. we have laws but we have norms that we have obeyed for two cent ris. he's breaking them. and whether they can be repaired again is a very good question. he's doing real damage to those norms so fundamental to our democracy. >> senator chuck schumer, the top democrat in the united states senate, thank you for being here tonight and spending this much time and as the tax bill goes forward i can tell that you're fired up about it. >> i am. >> keep us apprised in terms of the chances and moving in your caucus. >> please call your congress people, call your friends in all of those republican districts. this is really vital to america. and with health care, because we had real movement in the streets, combined with what we did in our unity as a caucus, we won. we can do the same thing here. sorry for that commercial. >> that was the senator and not me. we'll be right back. on audible.

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quick update to a story that we brought at the top of the show regarding attorney general jeff sessions and the new questions about his repeated denials that he was aware of any contacts between the trump campaign and russian officials in the campaign. those questions have put the attorney general in a very difficult position. now that the trump campaign foreign policy adviser papadopoulos said he met with officials in the campaign and he later lied to the fbi about it. tonight, carter page who also served as a foreign policy adviser on the trump campaign, he tells nbc news in an e-mail tonight that during the presidential campaign in june of last year he says he informed now attorney general then senator jeff sessions that he carter page was making a trip to russia during the campaign. page tells nbc news, quote, back in june 2016, i mentioned in

passing that i happened to be planning to give a speech at a university in moscow. now, a source familiar with the conversation says page told the house intelligence committee in closed testimony today that he shook jeff sessions' hand, told him he was on the trump team and he told him that he was heading to russia. according to the source, sessions did not respond and moved on to the next person but this is yet another instance in which jeff sessions appears to have been told about contacts between the trump campaign and russia, contact that is he inequivocally and without condition denied under oath. we'll see you tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. i rearranged my schedule to make sure to be here tomorrow night live to host the show because -- >> great, becau. >> because, of course, tomorrow night was going to be when the white house revealed